Why all languages are important

The editorial of Rozenn Milin
Director of Sorosoro

Some may say “a website on endangered languages across the globe, what a strange idea!” At a time when the trend is to learn English, Chinese or Arabic, worrying about those “small” languages from far away lands and cultures may seem futile…

To these people, our response would be:
Why think “monolingual”, when human beings have the ability to master several languages?
Why limit our minds to our own horizons while the rest of the world has so much to teach us?
Why settle for the most common mindset when we would gain so much by opening ourselves to the differences that others have to offer us?

In many places around the world, especially those that are geographical, commercial or cultural crossroads numerous languages of all sorts are often spoken side-by-side without causing the slightest problem. People in these areas are often as at ease with French, English or Spanish, as they are with Yoruba, Gbari, Shina or Burushaski. Indeed, all of this linguistic variety is not at all incompatible: one may communicate in widely spoken languages while continuing to take an interest in less widespread ones.
What is actually at stake here is diversity, and the writer Victor Ségalen’s phrase, highlghted on the banner of our website, states it quite simply: when diversity shrinks, so does humanity.

If one day the world came to speak but one single language, eat the same type of food, dress in the same manner, and think the same way, it would then offer but one cultural model — and we would mourn the corresponding loss of diversity.
Let’s make sure this doesn’t happen!

Sorosoro is a program carried by the WOLACO Association (World Languages ​​Conservancy) and supported by the Laboratory of Excellence ASLAN (Advanced Studies on language complexity) from the University of Lyon.